Review by George Sabo (Department of Anthropology,
University of Arkansas)

An Osage on Osages Louis F. Burns, a member of the
Osage Mottled Eagle clan, has written several
excellent books on Osage history and culture. This
latest volume provides the general reader as well as
the specialist a valuable introduction to Osage
ceremonial customs and associated traditional
narratives. The book is divided into two parts. Part
1, “Customs,” begins with a chapter describing the
Little Old Men. This is a group of elders who,
having devoted their lives to study and
contemplation, are charged with the responsibility
of upholding community spiritual, moral, and ethical
values. The Little Old Men functioned as the keepers
of the sacred lore that forms the primary subject
matter of this volume.

Seven additional chapters follow, detailing Osage
ceremonial life in the contexts of government,
religion, family life, food production, warfare,
funeral observances, and sundry other affairs. Part
2, “Myths,” presents traditional narratives in two
short chapters dealing respectively with genesis
accounts and general myths. These traditional
narratives provide the conceptual framework on which
the ceremonial life of the community is based, a
point that I wish the author had addressed in
greater detail. The bulk of the material presented
in the book pertains to a bygone era when Osages
existed as an in-dependent, native North American
tribe. Indeed, the primary source for the
information presented in the book is the voluminous
work of Francis La Flesche, an Omaha Indian who
worked for the Bureau of American Ethnology during
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Fluent in the Osage language and trusted by the most
adept religious practitioners of that era, La
Flesche published several volumes together
containing thousands of pages of highly de-tailed
descriptions of Osage beliefs, ceremonial practices,
and cultural institutions. Unfortunately, this
material is difficult to find outside of academic
libraries and none of it is easy reading.

Burns provides a great service in selecting from
this mountain of information the most essential
facts required for a general understanding of
traditional Osage customs. He presents these facts
in a well-organized, easy-to-read account. The
information provided in each chapter yields many
valuable insights into the organization of Osage
culture and the manner in which it was sustained,
and some information is included that illustrates
how these customs were modified across the
generations.

The chapter on Osage government, for example,
be-gins with a brief summary of Osage religious and
philosophical precepts, and then traces how
fundamental religious and philosophical principles
were embraced in successive governing institutions.
The next chapter, on religion, does not dwell on
sacred texts, as might be expected from a western
cultural perspective, but instead examines the
songs, material accouterments, and rituals through
which Osage communities celebrate their relations
with supernatural powers and spiritual beings.

Social relations within the community are shown to
be premised on those spiritual ties. Family matters,
the quest for food and other necessary resources,
warfare, and mourning of the dead similarly involve
the performance of specially designated rites that
are likewise based on fundamental religious beliefs.
These rites make use of their own material trappings
to symbolize the Osage social order and acknowledge
its dependence on cosmological relationships. Though
the information in each chapter is but a brief
summary of fuller expositions in primary sources
penned by La Flesche and other writers, Burns’s
well-organized treatment ably succeeds in conveying
the richness of Osage beliefs and associated
ceremonial practices.

The few and spare line drawings that il-lustrate
each chapter don’t do much to support the narrative
presentation (a central colored insert of ceremonial
design motifs adds a nice touch), but this sacrifice
was undoubtedly made to maintain the book’s modest
pricing. The careful reader will still come away
with a profound sense of how life in an Osage
community would differ from more familiar social and
cultural experiences.

Beyond the general reader, Burns’s careful reliance
on basic source materials makes the book a handy,
thoroughly annotated reference for students and
scholars, who can use it to guide more thorough
study. Furthermore, when read in conjunction with
Burns’s A History of the Osage People (2004),the
shortcomings of this book’s a-temporal treatment are
overcome and a sense can be gained of what has
changed and what has endured throughout recorded
Osage history. In sum, this brief volume is a very
welcome addition to the literature on Osage culture
and history. It will appeal to the interests of the
general reader, it can be used as a text in college
courses on North American Indians, and it will serve
as a useful reference for more advanced students,
scholars, and teachers.

Many thanks are owed to Louis F. Burns for his
personal commitment to disseminating high-quality
information about the Osage people, and to the
University of Alabama Press for assisting in this
endeavor.

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